


so desperate in your arms

by 1848pianist



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone is Trans, F/M, Families of Choice, Fate & Destiny, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Abandonment Issues, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Trans Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Making Geralt Cry, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Timeline What Timeline, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Young Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, unbearable tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:40:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26147311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1848pianist/pseuds/1848pianist
Summary: It's been more than a century since Geralt was first taken to Kaer Morhen. But some wounds never heal.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 36
Kudos: 185





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, my 50th work on AO3.

For once, Jaskier is not the first to suggest they make camp for the night. Before he’s even started to think about dinner, Geralt slows Roach and starts looking around them for a place to rest.

Not that Jaskier’s complaining about stopping early. He wouldn’t mind a nice, quiet evening. Besides, the wound on Geralt’s thigh, courtesy of an encounter with a cockatrice earlier that day, is still bleeding freely. Jaskier wishes that he’d let him look at it—not that he’s really any good at sewing up wounds, despite several opportunities for practice over the years.

That afternoon, Geralt had insisted that he was fine despite his injury and that they press on. He had collected his reward from the nearby village, and now they were making their way to Tretogor, where Yennefer would meet them. In a town that size, Geralt could stock up on supplies and Jaskier could better contribute his barding skills to their funds.

Evidently, though, Geralt had finally thought better about continuing on while wounded. To Jaskier’s relief.

Aside from his concern for Geralt’s physical well-being, he’s positively content. The path they’re traveling is green and sunlit, the weather absolutely perfect. They have coin, for once, and Geralt’s success against the cockatrice has Jaskier’s mind racing with inspiration for new songs.

The side of the road all looks equally picturesque and campsite-worthy to him, but Geralt, attuned to sounds and smells Jaskier doesn’t have a hope of detecting, rides past a dozen likely places, eventually picking a spot he deems suitable for the night. Perhaps the ground is drier here than further on, or maybe the last patch of flat ground they passed was home to a nest of hornets. Jaskier trusts Geralt’s judgment in these matters.

“Let me start the fire,” he says when Geralt finishes attending to Roach and starts collecting kindling. “Go sit down before you bleed everywhere.”

Geralt snorts. “Fine.” He walks back over to Roach, but instead of sitting or resting, he starts unpacking their bed rolls and dinner.

“Sit _down_ ,” Jaskier repeats. “I’m going to collect branches. I’ll be right back.”

He turns and ventures deeper into the woods, careful to stay near enough to camp that he doesn’t lose his way or wander into danger. The further he walks, the louder the sounds of birdsong and cicadas grow. He can even hear the quiet splashing of a small nearby waterfall.

 _Absolutely bucolic_ , he thinks. Life on the Path isn’t _all_ gore and monsters and cold, wet nights. Kindling is plentiful and easy to find, turning his thoughts to a roaring bonfire, a good dinner, and a few rounds of ale before bed.

“Right,” he says as he reenters the clearing where Geralt and Roach are waiting. “Let’s get the fire started and patch up your leg, and then…Geralt?”

The witcher is sitting stiffly by Roach, looking out towards the road. Jaskier follows his gaze, seeing nothing but trees and sunlight.

“Geralt? What is it?”

Geralt’s gaze snaps to Jaskier as if he hadn’t heard him approaching.

“We need to go.”

“What? Is someone coming? Or some…thing?”

“Come on.”

Geralt is in such a hurry to leave whatever it is behind that he lets Jaskier ride with him on Roach. Jaskier holds on tight as Geralt spurs her to a gallop and does his best not to slide off the back of the saddle. He hears neither hooves nor wingbeats pursuing them, but if Geralt says they go, they go. His shoulders and back are tense as iron where Jaskier is pressed up against him.

Geralt doesn’t relax a fraction of an inch as the sun begins to set, but he gradually lets Roach slow to a walk. Finally, they stop. He still hasn’t said a word.

Even now that they’ve stopped again, Geralt is still moving like they’ll be under attack any second. He grooms Roach, builds the fire, and unpacks the bed rolls, all the while twitching at every noise and movement.

“Will you please sit down?” Jaskier asks, exasperated and not a little scared. “At least take some weight off your leg, if you’re not going to dress it.”

“It’s just a scratch.”

“Fine. Bleed all over the campsite, then. Just let me know if we’re about to be eaten by wolves or something.”

Jaskier stalks off into the woods, figuring he’ll at least pick berries or something while Geralt stews. He half expects the witcher to drag him back to the campsite, saying it isn’t safe to go wandering around. But Geralt is staring back at the road again, not paying any attention to Jaskier.

When he gets back, Geralt is sitting by the fire, looking like he’s been carved out of stone. His shoulders are drawn up practically to his ears.

“Geralt, what’s going on? You’ve been extra jumpy all evening. Talk to me. What was wrong with the last campsite?”

Geralt grunts and stares even more intensely, if such a thing is possible, into the fire. Just when Jaskier is certain he’s not going to reply, he looks up.

“What do you know about how people become witchers?”

Confused as he is by this abrupt change in conversation, Jaskier knows that if he plays along, Geralt might say something that will let Jaskier help him. He sighs and shrugs.

“Not much, I suppose. Training at Kaer Morhen, Trial of the Grasses, all of that. Or what you’ve told me about it, anyway. I assume the rumors about witchers snatching children out of cradles to turn them into monster hunters are false.”

“They’re not so far from the truth,” Geralt says, staring back at the flames.

After a long silence, he continues, “Sometimes mothers give up their sons, when there are too many mouths to feed and no prospects for them. Other times, children go missing. A few years pass, and they return as witchers. It’s not a life many would choose for their children. So. Sometimes the schools get desperate.”

“Ah.” Jaskier sits down across from Geralt, afraid of saying the wrong thing in case he shuts down the conversation. “Ehrm, am I supposed to guess which you were?”

“I was neither.”

“Right…”

“Vesemir saved my mother’s life once. I don’t know the details. She was a sorceress. He knew the School of the Wolf needed new recruits. He claimed the Law of Surprise.”

“You’re a child surprise?!”

Jaskier’s first thought, to his later regret, is what incredible poetry this revelation makes. He quickly shoves the thought aside when he realizes the magnitude of what Geralt is telling him.

“Wait, I thought sorceresses were sterile.”

“They usually are. Hence the surprise. I assume.”

“Oh. So you were raised entirely at Kaer Morhen? By Vesemir?”

Geralt shakes his head. “No. I knew fuck all about witchers growing up. Until I was eight.”

Jaskier waits, afraid to press for more details. It’s hard to imagine Geralt at eight. He looks as though he as always been exactly as he is now. And in a way, he has, at least as long as Jaskier’s been alive. But take away the scars, the catlike eyes, the white hair…what must he have been like?

“We were traveling. I didn’t know where we were going. But my mother was a healer, so we were always going one place or another, whether to collect herbs or visit patients or set up shop in a new town. At some point…she stopped the cart and asked me to fetch her some water.”

At this, Geralt cuts off, glancing off into the trees. Throughout his story, his voice has remained even and steady, but even through the firelight, Jaskier can see deep lines of pain around his eyes.

“She _left_ you?”

Geralt nods. “She was gone by the time I came back. I never knew where we were when she left. But I waited for hours on the side of the road. Until Vesemir arrived. It still looks the same. After all this time.” He stops, digs his fingers into his palms. Exhales shakily. “I never thought I would see that place again.”

“Oh, Geralt.”

“I never even knew where it was, really. Somewhere on the way to Kaer Morhen. It never occurred to me that I might recognize it. It was so long ago—”

Jaskier feels his heart break for Geralt, as it has so many times before. Each crack feels like a burden he carries for his friend, but he wished he knew how to turn that feeling into something that mattered. Something that helped. Geralt’s problems can’t be solved with a hug and a sympathetic word, but that’s all that Jaskier has to offer.

He knows what it is to be rejected by one’s own parents. Gods above, the Pankratz family made it abundantly clear they wanted an aristocratic daughter, not a troubadour son. But to be abandoned? Left on the side of the road, alone and helpless, with no explanation? To be condemned, without knowing it, to either an agonizing death or a long life of suffering? The thought makes his breath catch in his throat.

“Geralt, I’m so sorry.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it. It wasn’t your decision,” Geralt says roughly.

“No, of course not. But I’m sorry that it happened to you. To anyone. But especially to you.”

“It is what it is,” Geralt says, still looking off to the side. He sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than Jaskier. “I don’t know any other life. Visenna clearly didn’t intend to raise a child. There’s no point imagining what might have been. So don’t apologize to me.”

To stop himself from walking over and embracing Geralt, Jaskier wraps his arms around himself.

“Well, then, I’m sorry for eight-year-old Geralt. Sorry that he was left behind, and sorry for all the pain that was to come.”

Geralt says nothing, just hunches his shoulders and stares back into the fire.

All Jaskier wants to do is walk over to Geralt, put his arms around him, and never let go again. Short of that, he feels like going to bed and sleeping for a solid forty-eight hours. He sighs, wishing he knew how to reach past his friend’s defenses without scaring him off for good.

“Goodnight, Geralt. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He glances back towards Geralt as he stands. To his shock, he sees that Geralt is crying. Actually _crying_ – soundlessly, but with tears streaming down his face.

For a moment, Jaskier is frozen, horrified. He has seen Geralt reset his own broken bones without a groan of protest. He’s seen him suffer gaping wounds and horrific insults, pitchforks and monster venom. Constant death and disease and suffering, day after day after day. He has never once seen Geralt cry. Never.

“Fuck. _Geralt—_ ”

He rushes over to sit next to him and puts his hand on Geralt’s shoulder before he can stop himself.

Geralt jerks back like he’s been burned, turning his face away from Jaskier. “Don’t.” His teeth are clenched so tightly it comes out a hiss. “Stop. Just—just go.”

Anger rises up in him, hot and choking.

“I’m not fucking leaving you here like this by yourself,” he says. “Not after everything you just told me.”

“Go. I’m fine.”

“No, Geralt, you are not _fine._ You’re bleeding and crying and you’re not bloody FINE!”

His anger morphs into a rage he didn’t quite know he was capable of. Not at Geralt—at all the hurt that contributed to this moment. At Visenna, at Vesemir. People he doesn’t even know. Jaskier doesn’t often feel anger, real anger, but right now he thinks he could kill on Geralt’s behalf. More than that; he _wants_ to hurt someone, to exact some small revenge for what Geralt has been through.

He forces himself to breathe, trying to regain control of himself.

“I’m sorry. It’s not you I want to shout at. I just…fuck, Geralt. No wonder you didn’t want to camp there. Gods.”

Geralt shakes his head. “It shouldn’t have mattered. I shouldn’t have—I overreacted.”

“Of course it matters! You were a child, Geralt. You were just a kid. You must have been terrified. And to relive it all over again—I’m so sorry.”

Geralt growls. “Why do you keep apologizing?”

“Because someone should!” Jaskier drags his hand down his face. “And I’m the one who’s here right now. And you’re my friend.”

Geralt looks up at him, and his expression is one of such naked incomprehension that tears threaten to overflow Jaskier’s eyes, too. He swipes them away with the back of his hand.

“Listen, I—I know this hard for you. I know there aren’t that many people who care. But I do. I care about you, Geralt. And maybe you think it’s not worth it. You know, sometimes I think you really believe all that shit about witchers not having feelings. But I know you do, Geralt. You do. And I feel for you, Geralt. Not—not pity, or some romantic sense of tragedy, if that’s what you’re thinking. It _hurts_. To see you hurting. To not be able to help. That you don’t even let me help.”

Geralt’s breath catches in his throat. He looks…undone. Eyes wide, jaw clenched. His hands are shaking.

“You do,” he says finally. “Help.”

“Oh.”

This, more than anything else, sends Jaskier over the edge. The sob he’s been holding back forces its way out, and he covers his mouth with his hand.

“Good,” he manages to say through his fingers.

Geralt’s eyes widen even further. He reaches out slowly and brushes Jaskier’s cheekbone with hesitant fingers.

Jaskier turns his head, leaning into Geralt’s palm. Then, before he can think or talk himself out of it, he lurches forward and throws his arms around Geralt’s waist, crushing his face to his chest. Geralt makes a sound low in his throat that Jaskier doesn’t ever want to hear again.

“I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”

Geralt’s arms wrap around him slowly. Jaskier can feel his shoulders shaking, hear his breath hitch. He holds on tighter, as tightly as he dares. Geralt’s palms press into his back, his arms loose around him as though afraid of crushing him.

Jaskier doesn’t know how long they stay like that, holding each other upright. When he eventually sits up, he can’t keep his hands off Geralt, running over his chest and shoulders like he’s checking for injuries. He ends up with his hands on either side of Geralt’s face, cradling his head in his hands. Geralt goes still and quiet, only the occasional shuddering breath breaking the silence.

“Thank you for telling me,” Jaskier finally says. His voice is rough, even to his own ears. “For trusting me. I know how much that means.”

He leans back and moves his hands back down to Geralt’s shoulders. “Let me stitch up your leg before we go to bed. Okay?”

After a long moment, Geralt nods.

The fire has died down, but after stoking it Jaskier thinks there will be just enough light to see by. By the time he returns with needle, thread, and antiseptic, Geralt has pulled himself together somewhat. Still, it makes Jaskier’s chest ache to look at him directly for too long. He focuses instead on the task at hand.

Fortunately, the wound is much longer than it is deep. Though it’s still bleeding sluggishly, Geralt heals quickly enough that it no longer looks as threatening as it did this afternoon. It does need cleaning, though, and sewing up. The concentration required to make the stitches straight is enough to even out Jaskier’s jagged breathing, and by the time he’s finished he feels steadier, though completely drained. Geralt doesn’t so much as flinch throughout the whole process.

“All right. It’s clean, anyway.”

“Thank you,” Geralt says quietly. He looks as wrecked and exhausted as Jaskier feels.

“Of course. Come on, let’s get some sleep.” He rests his hand on Geralt’s uninjured leg for a moment before he stands up.

Geralt catches his hand. He doesn’t speak, but Jaskier realizes in an instant what he’s asking.

“It’s getting cold,” he says, though the night air is mild at most, even without the fire. “Do you mind sharing a bed roll?”

Geralt blinks in assent, his relief plain.

“All right.” Jaskier has a sudden urge to tuck a strand of hair behind Geralt’s ear. All this contact. He feels like he’s touched Geralt more in one night than in all the rest of their time together.

They lie down facing each other, Jaskier’s hand tangled in Geralt’s hair, their legs just touching. Geralt’s eyes close, but his fingers drifting gently up and down Jaskier’s spine tell him he isn’t asleep yet.

“You’ll be here? In the morning?”

“I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Geralt sighs and is quiet for a long time.

“You will. Eventually. One way or the other.” He says this without accusation or bitterness, just resignation.

“Not on purpose. Not by choice.” Jaskier grips the fabric of Geralt’s shirt. As though he could hold off even death.

Geralt opens his eyes. “You don’t know that. You might want something else. Someday.”

“Geralt, I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.”

“Sure of what?”

“Of you. I’ve chosen this life. I’ve chosen you. And I’ll keep making that choice as long as I can.”

“Why?” Geralt’s voice is almost too faint to make out, even inches apart.

“I told you. Because I love you. The way you love Ciri. The way you love Yennefer.” Jaskier shifts until his forehead rests against Geralt’s. “Go to sleep, Geralt. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic came to me all at once in a bunch of feelings that didn't fit in my current WIP. I didn't so much write it as channel it. There is a second chapter to it, but I've GOTTA go back to my other fic first.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old wounds hurt most when they're healing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically none of this was what I intended to be in chapter 2, so uh, one more to go. Did I finish my other fic first? No. RIP me.

Geralt wakes up the next morning feeling unusually warm and well-rested. It takes him several seconds to register the fact of Jaskier curled up around him, still soundly asleep. He sits up and carefully extracts himself from Jaskier’s arms. Memories of the previous night crash into him like waves, drowning him in a suffocating sense of shame. How could he have lost control of himself over the sight of nothing more than an empty stretch of road? How had Jaskier’s apologies broken him open so completely?

Even worse, all he wants to do now is lie down next to Jaskier again and bury his face in the bard’s shoulder. He forces himself to stand and walk to the other side of the campsite instead.

 _Get a fucking grip_ , he thinks to himself. The voice in his head sounds a lot like Vesemir. And, as usual, he’s right. If he can’t move past this, control his spiraling emotions, he’s ruined. Ruined as a witcher. Ruined as the only thing he has the option of being.

He told Jaskier a long time ago that he didn’t need anyone. He had been telling the truth, then. But now…

Loneliness was tolerable. Isolation was tolerable. Like hunger, like cold, like pain. He could bear it when he needed to. He was designed to bear it. But then…

Then, for a moment, an instant, he’d convinced himself he didn’t have to. He’d let Jaskier comfort him, as though Jaskier’s concern and kindness weren’t wasted on him, in the end. Jaskier would leave, or die, and Geralt would only ever be what he is.

He can hear Jaskier’s voice in his mind so clearly.

“ _Well, then, I’m sorry for eight-year-old Geralt. Sorry that he was left behind, and sorry for all the pain that was to come.”_

He could never have imagined, not in more than in a century of being a witcher, how desperately he wanted to hear that apology. It was shattering. Destabilizing. Like having the ground beneath his feet disappear.

And Jaskier had said it so matter-of-factly, like he was certain the child who deserved that apology still existed.

That version of him had died at Kaer Morhen. The Geralt who survived doesn’t deserve that apology, but he needs it.

He needs Jaskier.

As long as Jaskier will have him.

Geralt waits on the other side of the campsite until Jaskier stirs, sits up, and rubs his eyes. He looks about him, smiling softly when he sees Geralt.

“Good morning.”

He stands up, stretches – like this is any other morning – and walks over to where Geralt is sitting.

“How’s your leg?”

Geralt lets out a breath of relief. This is familiar. Safe territory.

“Better. Thank you.”

Jaskier sits next to him. “Good.”

They sit next to each other for a while in silence until Jaskier decides it’s time for breakfast. He chatters to Roach about nothing as he builds up the fire again and locates their frying pan. Geralt watches him go about these utterly mundane activities, somehow unable to take his eyes off him.

“Here we are,” Jaskier announces with a grin. After writing him off as a hopeless case when it came to procuring food, Geralt has to admit that Jaskier’s cooking skills have improved dramatically over the years. His pride, naturally, has grown at double the rate of his skill.

“Thanks.”

Just when he begins to hope that they might avoid mentioning the previous night entirely, Jaskier’s expression turns serious.

“About last night—”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I know. I mean, I figured.” Jaskier pauses, waiting until Geralt glances up and meets his eyes. “You have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about, you know.”

“I’m not embarrassed.”

That much is true. Embarrassment is the wrong word for the overwhelming revulsion he feels toward himself.

Jaskier looks at him like he suspects there’s more to it than that. “Well, good.”

Geralt forces himself to hold Jaskier’s gaze until the bard looks away.

“You don’t have to talk about it any further. I just want you to know that you can. If you want to.”

Geralt can’t very well go on pretending that he has no feelings about his past. For a moment, he teeters on the brink of telling Jaskier everything – every detail of his training at Kaer Morhen, every blow and insult and slight he’s suffered in his life before Jaskier. He wants to push Jaskier’s sympathy to its breaking point, to see if it has any limits at all. He wants Jaskier to tell him that it’s all been worth it, all the pain he’s experienced, that he’s worthy of Jaskier’s love. But any reassurance that would bring would be matched tenfold by his disgust at himself.

“I’ve already told you all there is.”

Jaskier snorts. “We have different definitions of exhaustive detail.”

“What more do you want to know?”

Jaskier looks sidelong at him. “Would you tell me if I asked?”

Geralt lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I might.”

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime, on to Tretogor?”

Geralt nods.

*

It’s better to be moving, he finds. Things aren’t quite back to normal, but they bear a resemblance.

Their first day back on the road is quiet. Jaskier doesn’t exactly tiptoe around Geralt, but he gives him more space than he usually does. By the second day, he seems back to his typical self, which means altogether too bold and talkative for his own good.

“What were you like as a kid? Before, I mean?” Jaskier looks up at Geralt, squinting against the noonday sun.

“What?”

“What were you like? It’s just, you know. Hard to imagine.”

“Are you composing a song, bard? ‘The Witcher as a Young Man?’”

“Ha! There’s an idea. But really, I’m trying to picture it.”

Geralt focuses his gaze between Roach’s ears. It’s easier to talk to Jaskier when he’s not looking at him. He would never in a million years have this conversation with Jaskier staring at him across the fire.

“I was like any other child, I guess. What are children like?”

“I bet you were like Ciri. Feisty. Stubborn.”

Geralt hums. “I was happier than Ciri, I think.”

“What color hair?”

“Hm?”

“Well, I assume you weren’t born with white hair. Or were you? Now that is a thought.”

“Oh. No. Brown. Darker than yours.”

Jaskier nods, as though this confirms something he already knew.

“And eyes? No vertical pupils yet, I imagine.”

Geralt struggles to remember. He has only a vague image of himself as a child, and it’s a fragmentary picture. Always in motion. He’s not sure he ever stayed still long enough to capture a good view of himself in a spoon or a puddle of water. In any case, it’s been a very long time.

“I don’t know.”

“Dark, then. You’d look nice with brown eyes.”

Geralt feels the corners of his mouth twitch involuntarily, bemused. When he looks up, Jaskier is grinning at him.

“What.”

“The picture is coming into focus.” Jaskier holds his hands out in front of him like a frame. “Geralt, a boy of six—”

He smirks. “Visenna didn’t name me Geralt.”

“Really.” Jaskier drops his hands. “I have a number of questions about that. Another time, though. Anyway, our protagonist, a boy of six with dark curls and apple-red cheeks – oh, come on, I’m allowed some embellishments. We meet him in a meadow, doing whatever it is six-year-old boys did over a century ago, cave painting, maybe? Never mind. Ah, he’s made friends with one of the local beetles. Roach, is it…?”

Geralt is suddenly struck with the thought that Jaskier is closer to the mark than he knows, for Geralt realizes with a pang that more than anything else, it’s _Jaskier_ who reminds him of his long-ago self. Jaskier, talking a mile a minute, with his endless questions and grand dreams of the world. It’s not a thought he’s ever had consciously before, and it stings more than the cockatrice’s talons.

Jaskier breaks off mid-sentence, noticing the change in Geralt’s mood.

“Sorry, should I stop?”

“It’s all right. It’s nothing.”

To his relief, Jaskier doesn’t press the issue and changes the topic effortlessly, chattering on about Tretogor’s artistic scene in a one-sided conversation that clearly doesn’t require any participation from Geralt. After a few minutes, Geralt dismounts to give Jaskier’s legs a rest from keeping up with him on horseback. He stays on the other side of Roach so Jaskier can’t see his face, though. The walk turns quiet, which Geralt would appreciate on any other day.

“You’re limping,” Jaskier says when they stop to eat.

“It’s not serious.”

Jaskier sighs. “Let me have a look, at least.”

It’s worse than Geralt thought. The wound is infected, red and swollen. He’d been too preoccupied with his thoughts to register the pain as they were walking.

“Dammit,” Jaskier mutters.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine until we make it to Tretogor. Yennefer will have something.”

“You shouldn’t have waited half the day and night to let me stitch it up,” Jaskier snaps. A sudden flash of anger crosses his face, quickly replaced by a look of total exhaustion. Neither looks like him. Outrage? Sure. Weariness? Sometimes. Anger and exhaustion? No. Geralt wonders if he’s finally pushed him beyond his limits. Used up the last of Jaskier’s patience with him.

“I’m fine, Jaskier.”

“If you tell me you’re fine one more time, Geralt, I’ll scream. I will.”

“Physically, Jaskier. I mean I’m not about to keel over.”

“There are several more states of being besides ‘fine’ and ‘dead.’”

Geralt doesn’t know what Jaskier wants him to say to that. He meets his eyes and is struck with the memory, as strong as it was two nights ago, of Jaskier telling him he loves him. The thought doesn’t fit right in his mind. It’s like trying to comprehend the most intricate workings of Yennefer’s magic; it just doesn’t line up with his understanding of the world.

Jaskier’s expression softens. “Look, I’m just saying that you wouldn’t stand for me or Ciri running around with an infected wound like that.”

“You’re not witchers.”

“Yes, that’s the only reason.”

“It’s not the same, Jaskier. It’s my job to protect you.”

Jaskier actually rolls his eyes. “One minute, you don’t have feelings, the next, you’re the only one in the world allowed to care about other people.”

Geralt feels his anger flare.

“Don’t patronize me, Jaskier. You can’t make up for a shitty childhood by treating me like a child, no matter how much you want to.”

Jaskier doesn’t even wince.

“What are you trying to do here, Geralt? Do you think I’ll leave if you hurt my feelings enough? Is this some kind of test for me to prove I’m not going anywhere?”

Geralt prepares to snarl something back, but he finds he has nothing to say. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He wants Jaskier to stop looking at him and he wants Jaskier to rest his forehead against his again. He wants to get back on his horse and leave Jaskier behind and take him in his arms and never let go.

“I’m not good at this,” he blurts out. He doesn’t know where the words come from.

“I know.” Jaskier presses his hand to Geralt’s shoulder as he walks past him towards the road. “It’s all right.”

Geralt looks over his shoulder after him, wondering if he will ever be able to guess at Jaskier’s thoughts the way Jaskier seems to be able to guess at his.

*

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Yennefer says when they turn up on her doorstep at Tretogor’s most reputable inn. Geralt is surprised that no one protested at his entrance.

“Charming as ever, Yennefer,” Jaskier says cheerfully.

“I don’t recall inviting you along when I told Geralt I’d be here.”

Geralt is used to their bickering and suspects that fondness lies somewhere underneath it, if only because Yennefer is more than capable of vaporizing Jaskier on the spot and hasn’t yet.

“Think of me—” Jaskier says, making himself comfortable on one of the room’s several sofas, “—as an added bonus.”

Yennefer pulls a face and turns back to Geralt. Her expression changes minutely when their eyes meet: her eyebrows raising slightly, her mouth tightening. Then she’s back to her usual self.

“Well, come in, then. I suppose you ought to make yourself as at home as he is.” She looks pointedly at his bad leg as he crosses the room. “What is it you’ve done to yourself this time?”

“Cockatrice.”

“Let me see.”

She sits down next to him, probing the wound with unexpected gentleness. This close to him, the scent of lilac and gooseberries is nearly overwhelming. He closes his eyes to better appreciate it.

“Did stitch this yourself?”

“No. That was Jaskier.”

“Surprisingly competent, bard. Though you seem to have forgotten to sterilize the needle.”

Jaskier sniffs. “I did no such thing. You can ask Geralt why it’s infected.”

Yennefer looks up at him, one meticulous eyebrow raised.

He sighs. “I didn’t think it was serious. Didn’t clean it right away.”

“Try, ‘for hours and hours,’” Jaskier interjects.

“Stupid of you,” Yennefer says bluntly. She stands up. “I’m not an herbalist, and you’ve gotten this well and truly infected.”

Jaskier pushes himself upright. “You can’t do anything about it?”

“I didn’t say that. I can keep you alive, probably even keep your leg from rotting off, but you’d do well to be certain this heals properly.”

“What do you suggest?”

“You need a proper healer, someone trained. I was planning to go to the Temple of Melitele myself anyway. I’ll take you, if you’ll stand to be teleported.”

Much as Geralt despises being teleported, the thought is outweighed by the possibility of seeing—

“Ciri!” Jaskier says.

“I suppose that means you’ll be wanting to come too,” Yennefer says dryly, her hands on her hips. Jaskier doesn’t bother to reply.

“Why are you going to the Temple?” Geralt asks. “I thought Ciri’s training was finished.”

“There’s always more to learn. Do you think she’s learned all there is to know about swordplay?”

He shrugs. Fair enough.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” she decides. “I need to prepare before I teleport all three of us. In the meantime, Jaskier, why don’t you go find us some potable wine?”

“Yes, O Yennefer,” he replies sarcastically, but he goes willingly enough.

She turns back to Geralt the moment he’s gone, eyebrows drawn together.

“Are you all right? I don’t mean the cockatrice.”

“Not really.”

“That’s what I thought.” She sits down beside him again, curling her legs up on the seat beside her and leaning against his shoulder.

“You’re not going to ask what happened?”

“If you wanted to talk about it, you’d talk about it.”

“I don’t know what I want, Yen.”

She twists and props herself up on her elbow to study his face. “You’re even more maudlin than usual. Should I be concerned?”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he reaches instead for her free hand and interlaces his fingers with hers. Why he was able to talk about this with Jaskier, but not with Yennefer, who of all people would understand something of what he feels, he doesn’t know.

After a moment, he takes her hand and turns it palm-up, running his thumb over the inside of her wrist.

“Ah,” she says softly. “Happy childhoods?”

“Happy childhoods.”

A long silence passes. She traces her finger over the veins and tendons of the back of his hands.

“Yen…”

“Hm?”

“Doesn’t it ever bother you?” He knows he doesn’t need to put a name to it for her to know what he’s talking about. They’re both aware of each other’s pasts, of all that came before either of them were transformed by magic.

“Of course. All the time.”

“What do you do with it?”

She smiles with half her mouth. “Say to myself, ‘Thank fuck that’s over.’ I know it’s not the same for you. It shouldn’t be.”

She falls silent for a moment, staring at their clasped hands.

“I’m glad you have Jaskier.”

“You are?”

“Yes. Does that surprise you so much? I’m glad he’s with you when I’m not.”

Geralt closes his eyes. “Witchers aren’t meant to have traveling companions.”

“So? What does it matter? You want him there. He wants to be there. That’s all there is.”

“It’s not…good for him. I’m not.”

She scoffs. “Let him decide that. He is – difficult as it is to believe – an adult.”

That may be true, but Geralt can’t help but feel that no good can come of a relationship between a human and a witcher – any relationship.

“Yen...I don’t know that I’m good for her, either. In the long term. Destiny or not.”

Yennefer narrows her eyes. She doesn’t have to ask what he means.

“Why wouldn’t you be? No, don’t answer that.”

“Yen…” He sighs. “A long time ago, Calanthe told me that what Ciri needed was family. I thought she needed protection. And maybe I was right, at least then. It was one thing to take care of her when she was alone. She was just a child. Now she’s not, and now she’s not on her own. Yen, I’m a witcher. I can’t be what she needs.”

“By yourself? No, you can’t. You were right to involve me in her magical training. Geralt, It’s one thing to feel sorry for yourself, and I don’t blame you for that. Gods know all of us have enough to feel sorry about. But it’s another thing to make her miserable and pretend it’s for her own good. You’re her family.” Yennefer sits up to look at him, her spine rigid. “She asks after you all the time, you know. Where you are. How you’re doing. Whether you’re still in one piece.”

“It’s destiny, Yen. Not exactly her choice.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course it is. No one forced her to see you as a father.”

“You know I’m not her father, Yen. Call it destiny, fate, magic, whatever you want—”

“Don’t. Talk like that. Especially not to me. Look at me, Geralt.”

He does, and she looks as angry as he’s ever seen her. Her eyes are blazing. She practically crackles with energy.

“You think that no one can care about you because the people who were supposed to care about you didn’t. Now you have people bound to you by more than blood, and you tell yourself that destiny is the only reason they stay. You’re wrong. I’m here because I choose to be. Jaskier is here because he chooses to be. Ciri loves you because you care for her, not because fate obligates her to. Accept that. Then do what you will.”

For the second time in less than a week, Geralt feels as though he’s been torn wide open, seen to the core of his being and weighed in the balance. Yennefer, unlike Jaskier, actually has the ability to read his mind, but that doesn’t make it any easier to share his most painful and deeply held thoughts.

Before he can think of anything to say in response, Jaskier walks back through the door with an armful of wine bottles. He stops half a step into the room.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Yennefer stalks across the room and snatches one of the bottles from Jaskier’s hands.

“Nothing that didn’t need to be interrupted.”

Jaskier turns to look at Geralt, his entire face a question mark. He widens his eyes and looks pointedly back at Yennefer. Geralt has nothing to offer him.

“Well,” Jaskier says in an upbeat voice, attempting to lighten the mood, “perhaps you’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve sung for our supper. We’ll feast tonight.”

But even with the food and the wine, dinner is a quiet affair, despite Jaskier’s optimistic prediction. Yennefer still seems angry, and Geralt is too exhausted by his own thoughts to even pretend to contribute to the conversation.

Even Jaskier is subdued. Eventually, having drunk the largest portion of wine himself, he falls asleep on the couch, which at least prevents him from sniping at Yennefer over custody of the only bed.

As drained as he is, Geralt finds it difficult to sleep with Yennefer a simmering ball of rage six inches away from him. At least she didn’t tell him to sleep on the floor. His leg aches, and he can’t stop turning her words over in his mind.

_You think that no one can care about you because the people who were supposed to care about you didn’t._

If only it was that easy. If only he had a _choice_ in being a witcher.

_I’m here because I choose to be._

“Yen.”

“What,” she says without turning over.

“I’m here because I choose to be, too. Not because of the djinn. Or at least—I chose the wish I made of the djinn. Does that make sense?”

Yennefer sits up and slowly turns to look at him. Even in the darkness, he sees the wariness in her expression fade.

“That might be the most sense you’ve made in a long time.”

Her hair falls over his face, surrounding him with the smell of her. She presses herself against his side and buries her face in his neck, sighing contentedly.

“You ought to listen to me more often.”

“I know.”

In spite of himself, in spite of everything, he smiles, happy at least to have made her happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can someone rescue me from this fic? It's holding me hostage at gunpoint.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, I have finished this fic! I ended up breaking the last chapter in two pieces, and I thought about waiting until next week to post the end. But it's Christmas, so have them both.

Yennefer teleports them out the next day, once they’ve all woken, breakfasted, and dressed. She and Jaskier bicker all morning about who takes longer to get ready, though the truth is that none of them are quick to get up and leave the inn. Geralt eyes the glowing circle with distaste as Yennefer casts the portal, already feeling his stomach churn.

They arrive at the Temple of Melitele in a flash of blinding light. Geralt staggers on his bad leg and shakes his head, trying to dispel the sudden rush of dizziness that comes of being transported halfway across the Continent in an instant. Yennefer, meanwhile, leans over and rests her hands on her knees, panting like a racehorse.

He takes a step toward her. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Just tired.” She waves him off. “Three people is a lot.”

Jaskier, never having visited the Temple before, is already several paces ahead of them, admiring the architecture. Geralt has been around him in Oxenfurt often enough to know that Jaskier has a nearly endless font of trivia about Elven temple building, among other things.

“We’d better catch up before he flirts with the wrong priestess,” Yennefer says dryly.

“Bringing a bard to a temple. It’s like setting a forktail loose in a glassblower’s shop.”

She smirks at him over her shoulder. “A bard _and_ a witch.”

They reach Jaskier just as he comes up to Nenneke’s personal herb garden, where a girl a couple of years older than Ciri is weeding. She looks up at them, her eyes widening.

“You’re the witcher.”

Before Geralt can say anything in response, the girl yells over her shoulder, “Ciri! Your parents are here!”

“What are you screaming for, Iola? I’m right here.”

Smudged with dirt, her hair tied in a knot behind her head, Ciri rounds the corner of the garden wall. Then she sees Geralt, Yennefer, and Jaskier.

“Geralt!”

She rushes at him and leaps into his arms, trusting him implicitly to catch her. And he does, staggering only slightly from the jolt of pain in his leg.

“You’re back!”

She can’t have grown more than half an inch since he last saw her, but she seems so much taller. Older, too, more adolescent than the child he knew at Kaer Morhen. But her eyes and her smile are the same.

He’s missed her, missed her questions and her wit and her stubbornness. He knows she’s safer here at the Temple than with him, on the Path, but still. Yennefer was right. He should have visited.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m back.”

After another moment, he sets her down.

“You’re _all_ here.”

“Hello, Ciri,” Jaskier says after she hugs Yennefer in greeting. “How’s school?”

“Dull.”

“School’s overrated,” Jaskier announces, earning himself a glare from Geralt and an amused smirk from Yennefer.

“I’m sure we’ll find the time for some magic lessons while we’re here,” Yennefer says. “In the meantime, where’s Nenneke?”

Ciri shrugs. “Around somewhere, I guess. Why? Are you here to talk to her?”

“That’s one of the reasons—” Yennefer begins, but Ciri is already off on another topic.

“Wait—are you hungry?”

“Starving,” Jaskier says, at the same time Yennefer says, “No.” Geralt shrugs.

“There’s pastries! We never get pastries. Some merchant brought them from town.”

“Oh, well then. We can’t refuse pastries,” Jaskier says.

Ciri leads them to a low building where there are, indeed, pastries, as well as a small crowd of other inhabitants of the temple, priestesses and novices alike. They stare with open interest at Ciri’s entourage.

Jaskier heads straight for the food and, presumably, anyone who will stand still long enough to hear his stories. After a moment, Yennefer follows him with an exaggerated sigh.

Ciri looks up at Geralt.

“You’re hurt. I saw you limping.”

“Cockatrice.”

“Eskel says you raise your guard too high when you’re about to attack. Especially from the left.”

“Hmm. Did he?”

“Yeah. ‘Protecting your pretty face,’ he said. Is the wound really bad?”

He shakes his head.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little. Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem—” she cuts off, gesturing vaguely.

Geralt finds himself, not for the first time, grateful that Ciri is sometimes even less comfortable with emotions than he is. If she had Jaskier’s arsenal of words to describe her feelings, he’d be completely lost.

“It will mend,” he reassures her. He glances up just in time to catch Yennefer’s eyes from across the room. She raises an eyebrow, then looks meaningfully back to Ciri. A look that says, _See? I told you so._

Ciri is still looking up at him. “Are you going to stay here long?”

“I don’t know yet. It depends.”

“On what?”

“How quickly this heals, for one thing.”

“Can I come with you when you leave, then? On the Path?”

He smiles, though he knows it’s not possible. “Hmm.”

She crosses her arms and sniffs. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t. _S_ _omeone_ has to keep you from getting gored by monsters, it seems like.”

He laughs. “You’re starting to sound like Jaskier.”

She glances away, still trying to look stubborn, but a flicker of a smile crosses her face.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s sit down. You can tell me about your lessons.”

She huffs, now sounding like Roach. “You already know about them. I write to you all the time.”

“True, but you can tell me again anyway. Besides, your last letter talked more about the temple chickens than your studies, if I recall.”

“Chickens are more interesting than books,” she grumbles, but she follows him over to a table where Yennefer and Jaskier rejoin them. Geralt is struck by the sudden wish that they all had more opportunity to sit around a table together.

“I’ve been practicing my magic. I can finally do Igni now, look.” Ciri twists her fingers, conjuring up a flame in the palm of her hand. It sparks and sputters but doesn’t go out. A few of the other novices watch from a distance, their faces a mix of jealousy and horror. She grins, pleased, and looks up at Geralt.

“Well done,” he says. “The flame will be even stronger if you straighten your wrist. Like this.”

“Please don’t set fire to the Temple, either one of you. Nenneke will never forgive me,” Yennefer adds.

Ciri rolls her eyes and suppresses another smile, copying Geralt’s movements. This time the flame is steady and bright.

They sit together, the four of them, until it’s time for Ciri’s afternoon lessons, finally parting with promises to reunite for dinner. Jaskier elects to wander off on his own and explore more of the Temple grounds, leaving Yennefer and Geralt alone in the now-empty hall.

Yennefer rests her forearms on the table and leans towards him.

“You see? To Ciri, a comparison to you is the highest compliment there is. She idolizes you.”

He sighs. “That’s the last thing she should do.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You have a number of qualities worth emulating. She could do with a bit of your caution and self-discipline, for example.” She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. “As you could do with some of her sensitivity.”

Geralt recoils. “Meaning what?”

“I don’t mean it as a criticism.” Yennefer’s expression softens a little. “She feels everything so strongly—and she always ensures that everyone around her feels it, too. Sometimes to the point of doing damage to others, not to mention herself. You, meanwhile, drive everything inwards. It eats at you. I often wonder if you might not be able to balance each other out.”

“Yen, I’m a witcher.” Geralt looks away, feeling his jaw tighten.

“I’m aware of that, believe it or not.”

“There are reasons we’re not meant to feel things. Nothing good comes of it. People get hurt. It interferes with our work.” He sighs. “Just ask Jaskier.”

“I’m asking you. You’re always willing to admit that you witchers aren’t as unfeeling as people say, right up until someone asks what you’re feeling.” She extends her hand, touching Geralt’s arm with her fingertips. “Something happened, didn’t it? Before you came to Tretogor.”

“Don’t.” He draws his arm back. “Yen, please.”

She frowns, her mouth narrowing. Then she sighs.

“We ought to find Nenneke. See to your injury before Ciri’s lessons end.”

*

Geralt doesn’t make it to dinner with Ciri and the others that night. By evening, the infection in his leg is raging, despite both the magical and herbal treatments that he received from the priestesses. It hurts too much to put any pressure on it at all, so walking to the other side of the Temple is out of the question. Not that he would be able to eat anything if he did.

When he doesn’t show at the dining hall as they arranged, Yennefer comes looking for him. She stands in the doorway of his room for a long moment, lit from behind by the torch in the hall.

“Tell Ciri I’m sorry,” he asks her. “I’ll make it up to her.”

Yennefer doesn’t say anything, but she comes to sit on the edge of the be beside him. She puts her hand to his forehead. Coming from her, the gesture is affectionate, unusually maternal.

“You’re feverish.”

“It’s my own fault it’s infected. You were right. It was stupid, not treating it immediately.”

“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now. The herbs will work; they just take time. You’ll recover.”

“Is Ciri upset?”

“Nenneke told her you were worse. She’s worried. As is Jaskier. He seems to think you ought not to be alone.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yes, clearly,” she drawls. “Lying here half-delirious, unable to stand, feeling sorry for yourself, insisting that you’re alone in the world. Meanwhile, everyone who cares for you is afraid that you might do yourself harm through either action or negligence. Obviously you’re the picture of health and stability.”

He blinks, stung, and is horrified when tears spring to his eyes. He can’t do this again. Not in front of Yennefer. Not here, where he’s supposed to be a mentor to Ciri.

Yennefer’s eyes widen, plainly stunned by seeing him cry. She reaches up to touch his face, but he jerks his head away, furious with himself.

“I’m sorry, Geralt. I didn’t mean to…”

“Stop apologizing to me.” He breathes out hard, fighting to regain control of himself.

What has happened to him? He’s cried more in the past few days than he has in decades. Since the Trials. And all over nothing: an empty stretch of road, a kind touch, a sarcastic remark. It’s as though a seal has broken within him that he can’t close again, and now there are tears permanently lodged in his throat, breaking through and choking him at the slightest provocation.

He wishes that Yennefer would scoff at him, tell him to snap out of it or mock him for his weakness. That she would roll her eyes and command him to get a hold of himself.

Instead, she withdraws her hand, retreating into herself.

“You can’t bind our fates together and then push me away, Geralt. That isn’t how this works.”

“You walked away from me,” he snarls. “On the mountain. You said it wasn’t real. _You_ left.”

She looks back at him, eyes blazing but full of tears.

“I spent my whole life thinking I could never be loved! It was terrifying, Geralt, do you understand that? Thinking that everything you felt for me was a lie! That it was only magic! That you really did never have any feelings at all, that you were as incapable of loving me as I was of being loved!”

She drags a hand across her eyes, her shoulders shaking, and takes a deep breath. “Can you honestly say that you would be here, that you would care about me, if you hadn’t made that wish in Rinde?”

He feels winded, dizzy with fever and emotions he doesn’t know how to contain. The tears in his eyes are spilling over now, uncontrolled.

“Yen...I made that wish _because_ I cared about you.”

“I know.” She glances up, meeting his eyes again. “I understand that now. So can you accept that I’m here, now, because I care for you? Not because of destiny, but because I chose to?”

He stares at her through blurred vision. She takes his hand, and he lets her.

“Don’t we deserve it?” she asks. “After everything we’ve lived through. At least one person who loves us?”

 _You do_ , he thinks. _Ciri does_. _Jaskier does_. But he doesn’t know how to answer her. He closes his eyes, wishing he had never happened upon that stretch of road where Visenna left him behind. Failing that, wishing he could excise this piece of him that so desperately needs reassurance that it will never happen again.

He hears Yennefer move, but this time he doesn’t stop her as she runs her thumb along his cheekbone. She leans forward and kisses the skin under his eyes, her lips cool on his fevered skin.

He needs this. Needs her. It is the truth, but it terrifies him.

“I saw it again.” His voice comes out strangled. “The place where Visenna left me for Vesemir. We passed it on the road.”

He opens his eyes as Yennefer lifts her head, her hand still pressed to the side of his face. She is silent, waiting for him to go on.

“I couldn’t stay there. It was like—” he swallows, searching for the words. “It was like no time had passed at all. Like I was a child again. No witcher’s training, no knowledge of what would happen. And it feels like I am still there.”

Yennefer’s eyes close. Wordlessly, she presses her forehead against his.

He can bear being alone no longer. He is so tired of leaving first so that he won’t be left behind.

“Stay. Stay with me,” he asks her.

“I will. I will.”

She lies down next to him, mindful of his injured leg, and wraps her arms around his neck, letting him bury his face in her hair. Where Jaskier’s touch was gentle, hers is fierce, protective, as though daring the universe to take him away from her. Though her hands grip his shoulders as tightly as a wildcat’s claws, the pressure is reassuring, not painful.

“Sleep,” she says, her lips brushing his temple. “Sleep, and heal.”


	4. Chapter 4

He sleeps, and when he wakes, Yennefer is still at his side. He reaches out until his fingers find her hand.

The light from the room’s single window tells him that it’s morning. His leg still aches fiercely, and his vision is hazy, as though the room is filled with smoke. He feels at once both hot and cold.

“You look awful,” Yennefer informs him, lifting his hand to kiss the inside of his wrist. There’s no trace of fear in her voice, though, so he must not be dying.

“Feels awful,” he replies.

“I should imagine. Try not to get maimed the next time you go on a hunt, yes?”

He blinks, still exhausted. “I’ll try.”

“Mm.” She brushes a strand of hair from his face. Her expression turns more serious. “I have to go soon. I promised Ciri magic lessons. Will you be all right?”

He nods. He can trust that she will come back to him.

“Try to sleep. I’ll see if I can find Jaskier.”

The scent of lilac and gooseberries lingers long after she’s gone.

*

With his body fighting through the infection, his dreams are dark and confused. He wakes several times, feeling a hand on his shoulder or a cool cloth on his face, but each time unconsciousness drags him back under before he can make out any details of his surroundings. At some point, he hears Jaskier’s voice but can’t see him, can’t parse the words. The sound calms his fevered dreams, though. As he slips back into sleep, it’s enough just to know that he’s there.

In his dreams, he’s riding in a cart through the woods. He’s thirsty and searching for water, but when he returns to the road the cart has vanished, leaving no trace it was ever there. Perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps he has always been here, alone on the side of this road.

He calls out, but no one answers, and the bucket falls from his hands.

*

“Geralt, wake up!”

Geralt’s eyes snap open. His left hand finds the arm of the person calling his name. For a moment, he doesn’t know where he is. Then a face comes into focus.

Ciri, not Jaskier or Yennefer this time, holding a pitcher and cup. Her face is pale, eyes wide and bright with worry.

She looks at him with alarm. “You have nightmares too.”

He blinks, coming back to himself. His mind feels less clouded now, the throbbing in his leg reduced to a dull, distant pain.

“Sometimes. Yes.”

She holds out the cup. “Yennefer said you need to drink this when you woke up.”

He pushes himself upright and takes it from her, trying to slow his racing heart and ragged breathing. He expects a potion, some kind of healing elixir maybe, but instead it’s only water. The shock of cold clears his head a little.

“Thank you, Ciri.”

“Is your leg better?”

“It is, I think.”

Ciri sets the pitcher down, not quite looking at him. “Does that mean you’re leaving?” She fidgets with the edge of the sheepskin covering him.

“Not right away,” he says. It both pleases and saddens him to see her chin snap up so quickly. He puts his hand over hers.

“I still owe you dinner, after all.”

“That’s true,” she says, visibly relieved. “And Yennefer said you shouldn’t be walking around anytime soon. She said to take this all as a lesson on the dangers of infection.”

“She isn’t wrong.” He leans his head back against the wall.

“Geralt?”

“Hm?”

“Who’s Visenna?”

He looks at her for a long moment, gathering his thoughts. First Jaskier, then Yennefer—he would rather not drag Ciri into his past, too.

“Visenna is…was…my mother.”

Ciri bites her lip. “Did she die?”

Geralt shakes his head. “No, she didn’t die. She’s a sorceress, like Yen. They live a long time.”

“You said ‘was.’”

“Yes.” He takes another sip of water. “A long time ago, she gave me up. To Vesemir. So she’s not really my mother, not anymore.”

Ciri’s eyes widen even further.

“Why? Why would she do that?”

He shakes his head again. “I don’t know, Ciri.”

“Well, she shouldn’t have. It was wrong.” Ciri sets her jaw stubbornly, looking for all the world like she bears a personal grudge against Visenna.

“Maybe. But if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be a witcher. You’d never have met me. And maybe it’s what she wanted. Being a sorceress, I mean, instead of having a family to look after.”

As he says the words, he realizes he means them, or at least a part of him does. He doesn’t know what he feels towards Visenna – _if_ , in fact, he feels anything towards Visenna at all anymore – nor does he know whether he would choose to be a witcher of his own volition. But he would choose to know Ciri again, whatever the costs. Whatever Visenna’s feelings towards raising a child, he finds that his own are different, to no one’s surprise more than his.

Perhaps destiny works in even stranger ways than he’d thought. Perhaps there can be some use for past pain after all.

Right now, though, Ciri looks even more upset than before. She swallows hard, clearly forcing herself to hold back tears.

“What is it?”

She shakes her head, pressing her lips together and glancing away.

“Ciri.”

She looks back at him. “Is that what sorceresses do, then? Leave their children when—when something better comes along? When they decide they don’t want them?”

Horrified, Geralt suddenly realizes what she means.

“Ciri, Yennefer would never abandon you. Never. She’d die first.”

“How do you know?”

“I know, Ciri, believe me. Yennefer loves you. More than anything. As though you were her own daughter.”

“But she could change her mind.”

It leaves him breathless, hearing Ciri unknowingly repeat his own words back to him. Is this what it felt like for Jaskier? For Yennefer?

“Ciri, come here.”

She crawls onto the bed next to him, and he folds her in his arms, tucking her head under his chin. Her shoulders shake under his hands, and she sniffs but doesn’t cry.

It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that she’s not yet fourteen, that all the horrors of loss and war she’s lived through have been condensed into the span of just a few years. By comparison, his lifetime seems incomprehensibly long.

“Ciri…”

He doesn’t know what he can say to dissuade her fears. She has seen enough of life to know the reality of death, of parting, of circumstances beyond anyone’s control.

Her grip on him is tight. “You’re always leaving. You and Yennefer.”

“I’m sorry. I know. I’m sorry, Ciri.”

She shifts in his arms, hiding her face in his shoulder so he can’t see it. “I want to go with you. With both of you.”

“It’s not always possible.”

He will not lie to her, even to make her feel better. Even though he would like nothing more than to bring her with him along the Path. No—in truth, he would rather give it all up, hang up his swords and settle somewhere with Jaskier, Yennefer, and Ciri at his side.

“I never even know when I’m going to see you again!”

“Ciri, listen to me. It’s never my wish to leave you. Nor Yennefer’s. I do what I must to keep you safe, and I hope that I’m making the right choice. I know I haven’t always. But I’ll always come back to you, as long as I can.”

“But why? Why does keeping me safe mean you always have to leave?”

“I don’t know, Ciri.” He feels his heart break for her. “Maybe it’s time that we change that.”

She sniffs again. Her voice is scarcely above a whisper. “I keep having nightmares.”

“Of Cintra?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

Finally, she looks up at him. “Dreams where you die.”

He brings his hand to her face, pushing her hair back from her eyes. Ciri doesn’t remember it, but she foretold his death more than a year ago, at Kaer Morhen. The scope of her powers unsettled him far more than her prediction.

“I can’t change the future,” he admits. “I can only promise that I will be here in the meantime.”

She stares at him with green eyes full of tears. “Do you? Promise?”

“Yes. I promise you.” He places his hands on her shoulders. She reaches up, clinging to his arms as though to keep him there.

“My daughter.” Though his voice shakes, he means the words more than he’s ever meant anything. “You mean more to me than I could have ever imagined. Know that, even when we’re not together.”

She nods and bows her head. Both of them have tears in their eyes, though the other doesn’t see it.

*

The next morning, Geralt leaves the temple building, intending to test just how much his newly healed leg will bear. As he rounds the corner of one of the complex’s many gardens, he makes out a familiar form sitting on a low stone bench in the distance. Jaskier, silhouetted against the rising sun, tuning his lute in the morning silence. He looks up as Geralt approaches.

“Feeling better?”

“Some.”

“How’s Ciri?”

“Didn’t you speak to her?”

Jaskier shrugs, setting the instrument aside. “You know her better.”

“She’s—” Geralt struggles to find the right words. “It’s complicated.”

Jaskier looks up but doesn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.

“It’s—she worries that Yen and I will leave her. Forget about her. Or just move on, never come back for her. I told her we wouldn’t, we would never, but it’s hard to make her believe me.”

“Ah,” Jaskier sighs.

“It’s not that she’s so far off the mark. Something could happen to me. Or Yen. It’s always a possibility.” He exhales sharply. “I don’t know what to do. I just want to show her…that I will be there. As long as I’m able. Even though I haven’t always been.”

“Well,” Jaskier says slowly. “Wounds don’t heal overnight. It’s obvious she trusts you. The rest will come in time.”

 _I don’t know how_ _to do this_ , Geralt wants to say. _I don’t know how to_ _be worthy of_ _her trust_.

Instead, he leans forward until his head is resting on Jaskier’s shoulder and breathes in the scent of his skin.

“Geralt…”

“I need you,” he says before he can stop himself. “Once I told you that I didn’t. Most of the time I think that would be best, for both our sakes. But I do need you.”

Jaskier’s wraps his arms around him – cautiously, as though giving him time to pull away. Geralt leans further into him, even as his instincts scream at him not to. He fights through the discomfort as though it was physical pain, a wound he must stitch before it can heal, although it hurts to touch it.

“I need you too,” Jaskier says. “I mean, you know that. You’ve saved my life dozens of times. But just to be clear.”

“I worry that I put you at risk, being with me. I worry that I put _myself_ at risk. There’s a reason witchers don’t have families.”

Jaskier laughs shakily into his hair. “Are you telling me we can’t have children? Kind of put that one together myself, actually.”

Geralt smiles into Jaskier’s shoulder, despite himself.

“I know the dangers of life with you, Geralt. Believe me.”

“I know.”

Geralt still wants to argue with him, to convince Jaskier that he’d be better off far away from him. He forces himself not to, not knowing whether it’s selfishness or respect for Jaskier’s decision influencing him. Both, maybe.

“And Yennefer?” Jaskier asks.

“I need her, too.”

So much needing. His head is spinning with it.

Jaskier laughs softly. “Who are you, and what have you done with Geralt?”

He can only shake his head. “I don’t know.”

Jaskier pulls him even closer. “Well, I like this version. Quite a lot.”

Geralt closes his eyes to better absorb the warmth of Jaskier’s affection. He doesn’t notice Yennefer approaching until she’s almost standing in front of him.

“I seem to recall telling you not to go walking around on that leg.”

He opens his eyes slowly, his head still resting on Jaskier’s shoulder. “How else should I get your attention?” he asks.

Jaskier snorts softly.

The corner of Yennefer’s mouth twitches. She sits down on his other side, very close beside him.

“You already have my attention.”

He smiles, reaching out for her hand.

A plan has been forming in his mind, one he’s thought of many times, but never voiced aloud.

“I want to go back to Kaer Morhen this winter. With all of you. If you’ll come.”

Jaskier stirs, straightening his spine. Yennefer’s fingers tighten around his.

“Of course we’ll come.” Jaskier says, bumping his knee against Geralt’s.

“Yen?”

“Have I ever turned you down before?”

“I guess not.”

“Who will tell Ciri?” Jaskier asks.

Geralt sits up, taking Jaskier’s hand in his free one. “Let’s go together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this started out as an excuse to write Geralt crying, but as it turns out...[slaps fic] this bad boy can fit so much found family inside it. Hope you found it as cathartic as I did.


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